Mauritania

“You are holding me because your country is strong enough to be unjust.”
Guantánamo Diary, written by Mohamedou Ould Slahi,[i] depicts the continuing incarceration of this Mauritanian national in the military detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The book tracks Ould Slahi’s multiple interrogations on three continents, his secret rendition to Jordan and then removal to Afghanistan, torture, degradation and isolation in Guantánamo, and his ongoing struggle to have his day in court. This is not a feel-good book, although it is, perhaps paradoxically, optimistic. It is also a triumphant book: There is a triumph in the fact that Ould Slahi’s ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Comoros
Populist Muslim party surges in Comoros voting The populist Muslim party Juwa has performed well in Comoran parliamentary elections.
Comoros: a long history of coups A list of the coups d’etat that have taken place in Comoros since independence in 1875.
Djibouti
جيبوتي ترسل قوات إضافية ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Mauritania
Mauritania Will Toughen Anti-Corruption Laws Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz announced plans to strengthen laws against corruption on United Nations Anti-Corruption Day.
Migration, Fisheries, and the Supremacy of European Interests in Mauritania Hassan Ould Moctar discusses ...

A breakdown recently occurred in negotiations between the European Union (EU) and Mauritania over a new fisheries protocol; the protocol is a cornerstone of relations between the two, albeit a contentious one. The previous partnership agreement (expiring at the end of 2014) contained somewhat progressive measures, thanks to the lobbying efforts of local fishermen and activists. However, these measures may now be at risk of reversal due to the breakdown in recent negotiations. Having been the most vocal opponent of the equitable steps contained within the previous agreement, Spain has once again voiced its discontent following the latest collapse in ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Mauritania
Watch the Trailer for Mauritania's First-Ever Oscar Submission 'Timbuktu' Abderrahmane Sissako's drama about Al Qaeda militants taking over a town in 2012 premiered during the Cannes Film Festival.
Question et guerre du Sahara mauritanien The early days of the Polisario Front as viewed ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Mauritania
اعتقال رئيس المبادرة الطلابية بمطار نواكشوط A Mauritanian student is arrested at the airport, attempting to board a flight to a Palestine conference in Sudan.
تراجع التبادل التجاري لموريتانيا ب7.4% في الثلث الأول من 2014 Mauritania’s terms of trade weakened in the first quarter of 2014.
Two ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Somalia
Al-Shabab claims deadly Kenya attack Somalia-based group says attacks will continue, and tells tourists to stay away after assault in Mpeketoni kills forty-eight.
African solutions for African problems? Ambassador Abukar Arman, former Somalia special envoy to the United States, argues that interventions ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Mauritania
موريتانيا: غضب من قانون لرقابة وتنظيم الإنترنت Mauritanian activists are criticizing a recent bill in the Mauritanian parliament, which they say is a violation of freedom of expression.
Quadruple Hope in Mauritania's Refugee Camp Photos from Doctors Without Borders about a woman who gave birth to ...

The French association Les Ateliers is organizing an urban planning professional workshop in Nouakchatt, Mauritania, between 26 April and 11 May 2014, entitled “The Future as Challenge” (L’avenir pour défi.) Les Ateliers (International workshops of planning and urban design) is a non-profit organization created in 1982 that aims to promote the creation of ideas examining the challenges and processes of everyday city planning and design. It does so by fostering a process of collective and multidisciplinary work that produces innovative proposals relating to urban design and spatial development. Whether it involves students or professionals, each “Atelier” brings together ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Mauritania
Biram : les raisons du succès The author examines the reasons for Biram Ould Abeid’s success in fighting for human rights in Mauritania.
Mauritania to set up slavery tribunal A judicial committee chaired by President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz to create a court to try crimes of slavery.
Quand les ...

The first round of legislative and municipal elections held in Mauritania on 23 November signified the end of a two-year period of a parliamentary limbo. The country has been mired in a sustained constitutional crisis since 2011, when elections that were due to take place in September of that year were indefinitely postponed, leaving the National Assembly without a legislative mandate. Over two years later, these legislative and local elections have just now finally transpired.
Around fifteen hundred candidates from seventy-four parties representing the administration and the so-called “moderate” opposition competed for 147 seats in the National Assembly ...

In 1899, Louis Gustave Binger, the head of African affairs at the French Ministry of Colonies, received a proposal outlining a plan to bring a large swath of North African tribal territory under French control. The proposal covered a vast expanse of land, primarily desert, stretching up from the Senegal River to the bottom of the Kingdom of Morocco and eastward toward the south of Algeria. The name used in the proposal to delimit this geographical area was “la Mauritanie occidentale.” This was the first time that the name Mauritanie had been used in reference to this particular expanse of territory; the third-century Berber kingdom of Mauretania that later became a ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Mauritania
Activists persecuted for opposing land grab driven slavery in Mauritania The author argues that activists have been ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Comoros
China tests malaria drug on an entire African nation Chinese scientists, with the Comoran government, gave Chinese-made drugs to ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Maghreb and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Maghreb Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to maghreb@jadaliyya.com by Thursday night of every week]
Algeria
Algérie : 1er novembre 1954, retour sur la « Toussaint rouge » de l’indépendance Algeria celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Mauritania
الاحتجاجات أمام الرئاسة: مظاهر أزمة اجتماعية خانقة Protests have taken place in front of the President’s office in a sign of ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Mauritania
Mauritanian President Abdel Aziz re-elected Mauritanian President Abdel Aziz reelected in a controversial election with over ...

On 2 January 2014, Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ould Mkhaitir, a young Mauritanian engineer from the northern industrial city of Nouadhibou, published a denunciation of caste-based racism, which he framed as a call for religious reform. He dared to challenge the discrimination against Moulamines, the lowest of the low in Mauritanian society, and did so by provocatively criticizing some of the Prophet Mohammed’s acts. The government perceived his demand that Mauritanians cleanse their religion of racism as ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]
Mauritania
Mauritania: Islamic Television channel promotes moderation An interview on Magharebia with Othman Ould Farah, the ...

In the latest edition of his highly regarded history of modern Africa, Martin Meredith mentions Mauritania only five times in the book’s 816 pages. His most detailed description of Mauritania consists of a single sentence in which he says that upon attaining independence in 1960, “Mauritania consisted of no more than desert inhabited by nomads which until 1954 had been ruled from the Senegalese city of St. Louis.”[1] Meredith’s overlooking of Mauritania is unlikely to have been a deliberate act on his ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Maghreb and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Maghreb Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to maghreb@jadaliyya.com by Thursday night of every week.]
Algeria
L’Algérie face à son destin, d’Abdelkader ben Mahieddine à Tareq Mammeri Adel Herik postulates that Algeria has been bound to repeating history ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Maghreb and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Maghreb Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to maghreb@jadaliyya.com by Thursday night of every week.]
Geopolitics
Bouteflika écrit au roi Mohamed VI President Abdelaziz Bouteflika writes to King Mohamed VI, invoking shared history and neglecting any ...

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Maghreb and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Maghreb Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to maghreb@jadaliyya.com by Thursday night of every week.]
Maghreb
Global Gender Gap Report The World Economic Forum releases it Global Gender Gap report, with disturbing conclusions on backwards trends in North ...